Transit plan like Rob Ford's most popular

| Filed under: Toronto

Soknacki-style plan least popular

TORONTO AUGUST 26th, 2014 - In a random sampling of public opinion taken by the Forum Poll™ among 1945 Toronto voters, one half approved of a transit plan incorporating most of Mayor Ford's proposals ("Replacing the east end of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT with a subway, building the Scarborough subway and then building the Downtown Relief Line, paid for by public-private partnerships, the province and the federal government" - 50%). After this plan, equal proportions, just more than 4-in-10, approved of a plan similar to John Tory's ("Giving priority to the Scarborough subway, followed by running subway trains on existing GO Transit track, paid for with development charges on new development along the GO Transit routes" - 45%) and one similar to Olivia Chow's plan ("Giving priority to adding more buses to existing routes, followed by building an LRT in Scarborough, then the Downtown Relief Line, paid for with the Scarborough subway tax" - 45%). Just 4-in-10 approve of David Soknacki's adherence to the city's original LRT-based transit plan ("Following the original Transit City plan, including LRTs in Scarborough, on Finch and Sheppard and on the Eglinton Crosstown, paid for by a combination of development charges, private-public partnerships and tax increases" - 39%).


"Subways, subways, subways still steal the limelight, and it doesn't help that Soknacki's plan doesn't shy away from discussing taxation as a way of paying for it.  Subways are bright shiny objects, especially when they're offered for free," said Forum Research President, Dr. Lorne Bozinoff.

Lorne Bozinoff, Ph.D. is the president and founder of Forum Research. He can be reached at lbozinoff@forumresearch.com or at (416) 960-9603.